WORLD

Russia to begin delivering S-400 to Turkey in 2020

Russia will begin implementing the contract on the delivery of S-400 air defense systems with Turkey in early 2020, the presidential aide on military cooperation told a local television on Monday.

"Turkey expressed a wish to accelerate its implementation and we managed to find the most appropriate solution as we agreed to accelerate the contract's implementation, so I think we will begin to fulfill it sometime in early 2020," Vladimir Kozhin told Rossiya 24.

Kozhin also said that Russia has got requests from Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration on new arms supplies, but he added it is too early to give any details.

Last December, Turkey announced that it had concluded an agreement with Russia for the purchase of two S-400 systems by early 2020.

The S400 system has been in the inventory of Russian Army since 2007.

This missile system -- designed for high efficient guard -- is able to detect 600-kilometer-away targets (372.8 miles) and eliminate targets such as stealth aircraft and ballistic missiles.

The S400 system is composed of at least one mobile operation command center and 8 launcher and 32 missiles.